Behind objective description, special education and the reality of lived experience

Abstract

This dissertation is a narrative journey behind the objective description that we often use in special education to label our students, to name our desired outcomes, to write our plans, to sum up our work with individuals. I write autobiographically of my own lived experience in special education, and also biographically, describing one student's experience in special education over many years. I write in narrative form as an action for myself as a special educator and woman, and for change in my field away from objectification, and toward relational knowing as a basis for teaching and learning. I believe that grounding our work and our lives in the personal rather than the impersonal, as special education has done over many years, holds the only real promise for change as we move toward inclusion in school and community. I have been a special educator for many years, yet I did not fully understand my motives for moving toward inclusion of all students in the regular classroom until I undertook this work. It has been through a process of reflecting on, and re-storying my life and the life of my participant in this text, that I have come to understand my desire in this regard as a special educator, and also as a woman building a life based on relationship and dialogue. The relevance in my work lies in the stories written here, and the meaning that readers make for themselves as they interact with my text from their own life experience. My hope is that readers will challenge their views about inclusion through my words, that they will respond to the emotion that these stories hold for me, and allow it to impact on their vision of life, schools, and themselves.